Perfect Moment Monday: Refugee

December 15, 2008

Thanks to the ice storm and resulting region-wide blackout, my house still does not have power. (Unfortunately I don’t have ice storm pictures to show you, since I left the camera at home when we fled.)

I have spent the last three nights in beds that are not my own. Tonight will be #4.

Perfect Moment #1: People keep saying, “Oh, how awful!” or “It must be so hard for you.” Actually, no. DH and I are both very easy-going about stuff like this. I always appreciate being reminded of how well we both react to adversity, and what an unusual match that makes us. As far as I know, there’s no damage to our house (unless when we get home we discover a giant tree has crashed through our roof, which happened to people we know). While I’d still prefer to be in my house, the situation has certainly worked out better for us than it has for the people in our town who have been sleeping on cots in the high school gym, thanks to…

Perfect Moment #2. It’s good to have friends. As soon as we realized that the blackout wasn’t temporary, we drove to another city less affected by the storm. That city is well-populated with people we know, many more people than we know at home in fact. Our friends who had spare rooms weren’t available for various reasons, so for two nights, two different guys gave us their own beds and found another place to sleep (it’s not pure altruism, as both of them bunked with a ladyfriend and presumably got lucky, but still very generous). As part of descending on different people’s lives for the past few days, we spent time with some people that we know extremely well, got to know some people better (sleeping in someone’s bed and eating every meal with them has that effect), and met some cool new people. We had way more fun this weekend than would have had at home — either the blacked out home or our normal home.

I won’t go so far as to say that I’d be up for a blackout every weekend, but DH and I are both game for the occasional adventure.

Not sure if the power situation will affect IVF #2. I think that my RE’s office has electricity, but not sure about the staff’s homes. It will work out somehow.

Zen is so much better than freaking out — trust me, I have experience with both.

8 Responses to “Perfect Moment Monday: Refugee”

A healthy sense of adventure can go a really long way in situations like this. I also live in the northeast and was amazed by all the school cancellations this morning on the news! Hopefully you’ll be back home soon!

Glad you managed to find somewhere to stay warm! We were without power after an ice storm some 20 years ago, for about 24 hours. There were ice storms in Eastern Ontario & Quebec about 10 years ago that left people without power for weeks. I certainly hope yours is back much faster than that!

You still hear great stories about blackouts in NYC, people bringing out all the booze and tables and candles from restaurants in the East Village onto the street and turning the neighborhood into one big bar.